


I Just Made You Up to Hurt Myself (and It Worked)

by Xero_Sky



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Thor (Movies), Vikings (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Ending, Babies, Consensual Adult Incest, Fluff, Light D/s, M/M, Mild Gore, Other supernatural, Soul Bond, Thorki only because I ship it, Vampires, Violence, all sorts of implications, more teeth than really necessary
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-11 14:02:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2071038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xero_Sky/pseuds/Xero_Sky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Various short but complete fics, many originally posted on Tumblr.  </p><p>Fandoms, characters, relationships, and warnings added as we go along.</p><p>Updated June 28, 2016:  "Rebirth" Herc Hansen faces the future of his family.  It features a lot more Beckets than he expected.  Hansens, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Aftershock

“ _Neural handshake: failed._ ”

There’s nothing more he can do.

The taste of failure is a choking, burning thing, and it drives him to his knees after the latest attempt.

It’s only reflex that gets his helmet off before he vomits in the bag one of the medics holds for him. By this point the medics are coming in just as soon as the hatches unlock; they know how to disengage a pilot as well as the tech crew does, and that’s all that’s needed. Disengage the pilots, evaluate and treat them, and then clear them for the next try.

Chuck isn’t sure how many more times he can do this before passing out, but he won’t stop trying before then. 

He looks up at the clocks, the mission clock and the war clock, and barks out a laugh as the med tech plugs her scanner into his suit to take his vitals: he’s supposed to be dead out there by now, nothing left in the dark but debris and memories.

A wet wipe is run over his face, and he’s only mildly surprised when it comes back bright with blood. He’s bleeding from the eyes and nose and ears, she tells him. Perfect. He wouldn’t be surprised at all if he’d pissed himself at some point, too.

He tries to climb up off his knees, but he can’t do much more than lurch up and sideways before falling again, this time with the medic grunting as she takes most of his weight before lowering him back down.

“Just gimme a moment,” he mumbles, but she can’t hear him. The conn pod is too full of people now, all of them yelling. Suddenly there’s a rush to the right side: Pentecost collapses as soon as they get him free, eyes rolling up in his head as he passes out cold. The inside of his helmet is streaked with gore. 

Some tiny, dark part of Chuck is relieved to see it, because that means this bullshit is over for now, and maybe he can go find a hole and die in it.

He’s being pulled to his feet and taken out of the pod in a fireman’s carry before he hears someone say it, and it might as well be everyone who’s ever said it, laying down the same verdict all at once: “Incompatible.”

It’s the end of the goddamned world, and the same demon that haunted his adolescence, the one that set the fear of failure in his chest like a fishhook, is back again. They’d thought, somehow, that years of drifting with his dad would have fixed him, but he’d known better. 

Chuck Hansen is only drift compatible with his father.

Even when everything depends on him. 

He cannot fail more spectacularly than this.

******* 

And, maybe, that was the end of it. Monsters came up from the Breach and eventually hit the Shatterdome, now that Geiszler had shown them what it was, and the last jaegers fell. Over the course of the next century, humanity was systematically extinguished from the face of the earth. 

The Hansens died together, covering the retreat.

But maybe not.

******* 

Chuck waits until he gets a moment alone before breaking into tears for the first time since he was a child. His father finds him almost immediately, and holds him tight, and they whisper things to each other that they couldn’t say face to face the first time.

They don’t know what the future holds, but for a few minutes it doesn’t matter that Herc can’t pilot and Chuck can’t pilot with anyone else. They understand the value of time better now. For these few minutes, these men who could barely look at each other a few hours ago hold on to each other tight.

When the shouting over the intercom starts, they part easily. Nothing is solved, and nothing has been made better except them. 

With Pentecost down, Herc is acting Marshall. The news, in the form of gasping, sweating, rain-soaked scientists, comes to him: the Breach won’t let anything without kaiju DNA through. 

After several minutes, Newt also confesses that the connection might have gone both ways. The enemy will be able to anticipate them now.

There are three kaiju in the water now, the biggest things anyone’s ever seen, moving in slowly increasing defensive circles around the Breach, and only one jaeger ready to go. 

They are currently as fucked as humanity has ever been, and someone starts laughing before, the sound high and thin, before someone else stops them.

Herc looks at his son, whose pale face is still streaked with dry blood. Giving up is not in the Hansen DNA.

And Herc thinks about the K-Science labs and how they are full of horrors, chunks and slices of kaiju parts everywhere. He thinks about Geiszler and Gottlieb, and how little they probably know about military technology outside the jaegers they’ve lived next to for so long. How little they might have been able to pass that along through that fucking abomination of a drift.

He points a finger at them. “Someone find a room and stuff these two inside until I say different. No contact with anyone else.”

Geiszler is loudly unimpressed with this idea, but Gottlieb gets it. 

“Can’t risk a ghost drift,” he says loudly, awkwardly dragging the louder one towards the security detachment.

******* 

Herc starts making phone calls. It turns out that the things he’s interested in are both possible and available. Production had stopped when it was clear the payloads wouldn’t be sufficient, but virtually everyone he gets in touch with has something to offer. He calls in favors, and there’s a lot of people in debt to the jaegers and Striker Eureka right now. The Australian government in particular, still bleeding out from the Mutavore debacle, promises him anything he wants. Twice he lies and says he has the authorizations all cleared, and there’s three fucking kaiju in the water, so can we get this shit moving? 

By some miracle, the answer is always yes.

In the midst of it all, he explains the plan to Chuck, who translates the stressed and continuously interrupted Australian English into at least two other languages for the benefit of LOCCENT. The Shatterdome swings back into action almost immediately. 

It really doesn’t take too long after that, all things considered.

In three hours, Striker Eureka is in the water, moving towards the Breach as slowly and noisily as Raleigh and Mako can make her go. Her speed is for later; right now Striker limps and hobbles across the ocean floor, drawing attention to herself. At first the kaiju stick close to the Breach, but the tense crew in LOCCENT can see their defensive circles warp and stretch until all three are going after the lone jaeger. 

Chuck’s fingers tighten on Herc’s shoulder as the gap between the kaiju and his Striker lessens, the numbers scrolling away on the display. He hates Raleigh with everything he has for being there instead of him, but he knows the logic behind the decision. Raleigh and Mako are already paired; why bother testing one of them with Chuck when he’s already strung-out and exhausted?

He’s never allowed himself to get close to any of the other Rangers but his Dad. J-techs? Sure. They stayed back in the domes when the alarms rang. He and Herc had expected to die together, with no one left behind.

Dear God, he doesn’t want them to die. Not Mako, who he’s known for so long she’s a constant. Not Raleigh, who is still a Ranger, who was dragged in out of the cold and got right back into a jaeger and into the fight. Chuck has never expected to live, but he doesn’t want any more of them to die. Not now. 

He should be immune to tragedies by now, but his stomach churns as he watches.

With all their attention on Striker, the kaiju fail to notice the helicopters approaching the Breach. The aircraft converge from every direction except the one that Striker is in, and they don’t have to get that close, really, with the depth and the angles it requires.

This was one of the many ways that was tried before, and they had pushed the technology hard back then, hoping that maybe, maybe this time it would work.

But no one had drifted with the kaijus before. No one else had the key.

If there’s anything the world isn’t short of these days, its kaiju DNA samples.

Nuclear torpedoes have been in national arsenals since the 1960s. Using helos as launch platforms has been around almost as long. Stuffing kaiju parts inside the casings was invented a few hours ago.

Guidance is done from four separate locations, because that’s what they had to work with. There are twelve launches. The Marianas Trench is a dangerous environment for anything moving that fast, with guidance commands relayed over satellites. Seven are destroyed before they get anywhere near the Breach. Two explode just outside, missing by meters.

Three go in.

It’s enough. For once, it’s enough.

The Breach collapses. 

******* 

No one in LOCCENT celebrates, yet. They’ve still got a jaeger out there.

And it’s three on one.

Raleigh and Mako are prepared to run, because there’s no sense in dying like this, here and now. There are retrieval crews and a host of aircraft waiting to cover their retreat, if Striker’s fast enough.

Chuck knows kaiju, and he knows his girl, and he wants more than anything to turn away so he doesn’t have to watch Striker and her crew die. His pride insists, though, the same way it has since he was a boy, that he can witness anything his father can, that he can take the same damage without flinching. He doesn’t realize he’s setting his feet and hunching his shoulders forward, leaning into what’s coming, until his father’s hand comes down gently on the back of his neck.

They don’t hug, but Herc keeps a hand on him, and the warmth of it seems to seep down into his bones. He wonders how long he’s been that cold.

It hasn’t occurred to him yet that he’s going to live past today. There hasn’t been time.

Tendo’s talking to Striker, asking for a report.

In the deep, there’s silence. Striker hums with her own energies but doesn’t move, poised to run or fight, her pilots nearly vibrating with tension they can’t show, lest she magnify it to the outside world.

The kaiju have stopped moving, but they haven’t frozen in place: tails still move idly, what might be gill flaps flutter, jaws open and drift shut, and enormous hands twitch, with claws as long as a human is tall moving subtly.

“Looks like lights are on but nobody’s home,” Raleigh whispers over the comm, as if the kaiju might hear him.

The leviathans begin to move again but without purpose, as if they’re waking up slowly from dreams.

“They’re cut off,” Geiszler says quietly over Tendo’s shoulder, and Herc wonders who the hell let them out, because the other one’s here too, scowling at the displays. “From the hive mind, I mean. Without the Breach, who knows how far away from home they are?”

“They may not know what to do next,” Gottlieb says thoughtfully. “Are they intelligent enough to continue their mission without constant guidance?”

That’s a conversation for another time, it turns out, because Slattern’s tails have been moving in wider and wider arcs, and finally they lash across Scunner’s side, apparently without intention.

And Scunner explodes, launching itself into Slattern and tearing with claws and teeth. In the darkness the gush of blood is nearly invisible, but it takes only a moment for Raiju to be drawn in by the scent of it.

They are born to destroy. They are designed to be directed, set in motion at certain targets, and there is nothing left now but the instinct to attack, and the desire to kill.

Striker Eureka, the only other possible enemy in the area, does not move. In contrast to earlier, she now strives to draw as little attention as possible. Raleigh and Mako watch, grim-faced and pale, as the kaiju tear at each other, ripping flesh free and breaking bones. The blood clouds visibility, turning the darkness into murk.

“Pull them out,” Herc says quietly. “Slow and careful. Lights out, no unnecessary noise or motion. We can drop them again to clean up if need be, but I want them out of range ASAP.”

Tendo starts everything in motion, his calm, relaxed voice relaying orders as if this is yet another training exercise.

LOCCENT is quiet as they watch. Except for the nervous giggle Geiszler lets out when the head of security grabs his arm.

Herc waves her off with a smile that feels awkward on his face. 

******* 

In the end, Raleigh Becket and Mako Mori score two more kills, but killing Raiju is more like tidying up, and Scunner goes down easier than Knifehead. The three of them did such an outstanding job of killing each other that all Striker Eureka has to do is finish up.

“No pulse,” Raleigh says as chunks of Slattern’s corpse settle slowly to the sea floor, and Mako surprises herself by giggling even though she’s exhausted.

“We’ll get that stitched on our jackets, under Gypsy’s logo: ‘No Pulse’,” she says, and of course he can picture just what she means.

“We getting jackets now?” he teases.

“Of course. Chuck may have more kills than us, but he can’t match our swagger,” she says with mock seriousness, and they laugh together. 

“Heard that, Mori,” Chuck’s voice breaks in over the sound of LOCCENT coordinating their retrieval. “There better not be a scratch on my girl when you get back, or I’m having you do the repairs.”

It goes on like that, the banter easy and fast, as Striker prepares for retrieval.

Once she’s clear and on her way home, Herc stops the war clock.

Much to his surprise, Chuck doesn’t remember anything after that.

******* 

He wakes to the tiny yips and growls of Max having a dream. The bulldog jerks and twitches in his sleep, making the bed shake. Since he’s on Chuck’s bed, tucked in behind his knees as he lies on his side, there’s no way of sleeping through it. Chuck’s eyelids flutter open, and he has to work at it to keep them that way.

He’s not in his room. This is one of the rooms in the medbay, white and sterile and a little comforting, actually, with how normal it is.

On the bed next to him, Herc is crashed out in his regular clothes, deeply asleep. He has one hand flat on his chest, and he looks more peaceful than Chuck can remember seeing him.

At least since the war began.

And it hits him then: the war is over. He’s still gonna die, but not today, not wired into the head of a man who’s never much liked him, torn into nothingness by the bomb.

The bomb that wouldn’t have worked anyway.

His death would have been worthless, if he’d gone to it side by side with Stacker Pentecost.

He had never failed at something so important before, at something he wanted so badly and hated so much. No matter how much he’d tried, he couldn’t drift with the man.

And it was okay.

Somehow it had all turned out okay.

He’s never had the luxury before of failing without consequences. Not since before his mother died.

He’s staring at the ceiling, still trying to sort everything out and determine whether he’s dreaming or hallucinating, when Herc sits up straight, gasping as he wakes up all at once.

“Chuck!” he forces out, his voice breaking up, and something about it scares the shit out of Chuck, making him struggle to get his legs free from Max and the sheets. Herc notices and swings his own legs off the bed, hopping down to come to Chuck’s side.

“No, don’t. Just a nightmare. I’m fine,” he says, but he’s still panting a little, and Chuck can see the wildness in his eyes.

“Fuck that,” Chuck decides. He gets a hand under Max and rolls him over, clearing some space in the bed. “Get in.”

“No need,” Herc huffs, running a hand across his scalp. “Just a dream.”

‘Shut up, willya? We always share after a kill. Only way to get you to sleep,” Chuck grumbles.

“Only way to get YOU to sleep,” Herc says, scowling, but he’s climbing in already, and getting himself settled, because it’s true. Every kill since the first one, when he’d found Chuck shaking uncontrollably in his bed afterwards, his hands bloody where his fingernails had dug into his palms, to the latest, when they’d tumbled into the same bed without a word or a glance at each other, refusing to acknowledge what they needed.

It was a Ranger thing, a co-pilot thing, and it hadn’t skipped them just because they were father and son. The need to be close, to not be alone, is probably universal anyway.

“We didn’t kill anything today,” Herc yawns, sitting up to pull his vest off, knowing how it would bunch up under him as he slept.

“Doesn’t matter. World got saved today. Deserve a fucking night’s sleep, don’t we?”

Herc slips an arm around his waist as they settle in, back to front. Took them awhile, but they’d realized long ago they were gonna end up that way anyway, so no there was point in fighting it. 

Max grumps, waiting for them to settle down, and they do, eventually, pulling the sheet up from under his fuzzy butt.

It’s cramped, and turning over later will have to be a joint effort, but it’s comfortable in a way nothing else ever quite is. Their breathing will sync up in a little while, and eventually their hearts will do the same as they fall asleep. 

It’s just another symptom of what’s become of them. There is precious little space of any kind between the two of them these days anyway, and they’ll have to carry that burden forward into their future.

Chuck doesn’t mind.

He’s warm and his dad is here and Max, and if this is the only place he’s compatible, he thinks he can live with that. 

He doesn’t bother asking what Herc’s nightmare was about.

He’s pretty damned sure he knows.

 

~end~


	2. #1 -- Kissing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt list I found somewhere. Trying for 500 word fics for each one.
> 
> First up: Raleigh Becket/Chuck Hansen

When he kisses Chuck Hansen, he’s doing it to be a jerk.

There is something about the guy that gets under Raleigh’s skin like nothing else, and it’s gotten exponentially worse since Pitfall. 

You’d think that being given a second chance at a better life would have brought Chuck around, undone some of the damage he’d suffered growing up in a war, and revealed a little more of the man Raleigh is certain lies underneath.

It doesn’t. Chuck seems to get on a lot better with his dad, and, to be honest, he’s always done okay with most people who aren’t Raleigh. Expecting to die any day had made Chuck sort of touchy, Mako said, but he hadn’t always been like that before.

He still glares at Raleigh whenever they’re within 20 feet of each other. Raleigh can feel the hostility radiating off him; it’s like standing next to some perverse kind of furnace. He doesn’t even have to see Chuck to know when he’s there, glowering at him.

Chuck’s there a lot these days. The media’s crazy for the Heroes of the Breach, and for awhile, he spent a couple of hours a day with one arm around Mako and the other side of him crushed up against Chuck for the photos, while each man struggled valiantly to keep smiling and not touch each other at all.

Fucking exhausting, is what it is. Chuck never says a goddamned word to him. Ever. Just stares right through him and does his best to pretend Raleigh’s a chair or a door or a yappy dog, something he doesn’t have to acknowledge except by avoiding it.

So on the night Raleigh comes up with his new and brilliant plan to get Chuck to either work his fucking issues out or leave Raleigh the fuck alone, he’s feeling mean. He doesn’t know Chuck’s orientation, because he hasn’t fucking cared, but he bets he’s straight to the point of rigidity. Chuck Hansen wouldn’t be a queer boy, would he? Nah. Not red-blooded, 100% manly-man Hansen.

Raleigh, on the other hand, is flexible about these things. If he likes someone, he’s not overly picky about what parts are attached to them, since he likes both sets. A kiss isn’t going to do a damned thing to his self-image, thank you very much.

He’s kind of hoping it’ll blow Hansen’s tiny little mind.

So he picks a time and a place where Chuck won’t be able to hide a thing, and when the bastard’s not expecting it, Raleigh kisses him in front of a room full of people.

After several frantic, clutching moments, after a kiss that goes on until he can’t breathe, he realizes that lightning didn’t strike him: he’s found his soul’s mate. One touch, and they _know_.

People crowd around, congratulating them, but all Raleigh can hear, as he and his mate stand wrapped in each others’ arms, is the soft sound of Chuck whispering in his ear.

“You are _such_ an asshole.”


	3. #2 -- Making Rules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another 500 word fic.
> 
> Yancy Becket/Raleigh Becket/Chuck Hansen. Bondage. Light D/s. Everybody lives!

“You’ve got good taste, Rals,” Yancy says. He runs the edge of one nail up Chuck’s neck into his hair, and he shivers, unable to hide it.

“I know,” Raleigh says, walking back into the room, and Chuck’s eyes widen, because his boyfriend of a few months has put all of that lean, beautiful muscle on display for him and for his brother. He’s wearing only a thick, silver chain with a small circular tag that Chuck’s never seen before. It’s something to do with Yancy, then, and like everything else about Yancy, it makes Chuck nervous.

But, then, he’s tied to a goddamned chair. He’s not even sure how he let Raleigh talk him into this, except that the bastard kept kissing him and looking up at him through his lashes and nearly begging, and he already has a hard time telling him no and meaning it.

Although it’s not really Raleigh who’s making him tremble right now, is it?

He wasn’t prepared for Yancy, who’s as naked as they are and utterly in control of the situation. There’s no doubt of it, and there wouldn’t be, even if Chuck wasn’t tied up. 

“These are the rules,” Yancy coos into his ear. He’s running his fingertips across Chuck’s skin, touching whatever he wants.

“Raleigh doesn’t bottom for anyone but me, ever, and he won’t come without my permission. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

Raleigh smiles and kneels down in front of Chuck, but he doesn’t touch him. “That’s right,” he answers, stretching his arms up above his head, showing off. “Yance is in charge.”

“If you want to be with us, you need to learn how to mind your manners. You don’t need to call us anything but our names, but you’re going to be polite, aren’t you? Do what you’re told, learn what I teach you. Everything we do is private, and if you say a word about it to anyone else, you’re out in the cold for good. You get me, Chuck?”

He wasn’t expecting this. He’d thought that it was just some weird kink of Raleigh’s, sharing him with his brother. He’s only 21 and the Beckets are blond and beautiful and he couldn’t really imagine telling them no. Hadn’t he had this exactly fantasy more than once, before Raleigh had turned out to be available and interested and he’d learned how well the man could kiss?

He’s been hard since Raleigh had first looped the rope around his wrist. 

But he hadn’t expected Yancy, or what Yancy’s voice could do to him.

He can’t stop trembling.

“I asked you a question, Chuck,” Yancy whispers in his ear, and then he bites into Chuck’s shoulder, making him yelp. A hot tongue soothes the ache, but it’s Raleigh leaning over him, touching nothing but that one single point.

“Do you want it, Chuck?” Yancy murmurs, his fingers just barely brushing over the head of his cock.

Raleigh’s looking him in the eye, all earnestness and hope.

“God, _yes_.”


	4. Silly, Unrelated Hansens Thingy  (Raleigh Becket Is In Trouble)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raleigh sort of meets the Hansens.

Pentecost gets summoned to deal with an emergency phone call of some sort, and Mako follows him, leaving Raleigh’s orientation tour in Tendo’s hands.

“That the Hansens?” Raleigh asks, pointing with his chin at the young man, still in his drive suit and armor, standing next to the older man with the bulldog.

“Yup,” Tendo says absently, scanning his tablet for Raleigh’s newly assigned quarters. “The most Australian Australians to ever Australia.”

Raleigh squints at them on the other side of the hangar. “Uh… Father and son?’

“What?”

“They’re related, right? They don’t look like brothers, though.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah. Father and son?”

Tendo snorts. “Look again, young padawan.”

When Raleigh does look back, he finds the Hansens arguing, chest to chest, breaking it off only to glower at each other. Then the older man cups the other’s face in his hands and kisses him gently on the mouth, a kiss that the young man almost instantly deepens, turning softness into passion. Even from here Raleigh can see that they get a little lost in it, not breaking until one of their crew says something. The younger man scowls fiercely at the tech, but his partner just laughs.

“I hope to hell they aren’t father and son,” Raleigh says flatly after a moment.

Tendo smirks at him. “Nah, Mr. and Mr. Hansen have been gracing the dome with public displays of marital affection since they got here. Herc met him when he was testing for a new co-pilot, and they turned out to be more than drift compatible. Got married the second Chuck turned 18.”

“Oh.”

“Herc’s a pretty solid guy, but Chuck’s as territorial as they come, so watch yourself, brother,” Tendo says, trying to keep his smile from turning into an all-out grin.

“Hey! Who said I’m looking?”

“I may have met you once or twice before,” Tendo says, but he’s moving again, continuing with the tour, and Raleigh only has time for one glance back before he has to catch up.

Sure enough, Chuck Hansen is glaring right at him.

If the world doesn’t end, Raleigh is gonna get in so much trouble. He just knows it. With a helpless smile, he moves to catch up with Tendo.


	5. After Pitfall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hansencest, Post-Pitfall, Chuck lives!, no smut

All she wants is their drink order, but Chuck scowls at her, and it takes Herc a minute to realize what’s gone wrong: Chuck’s never been on a civilian flight before. Herc has, but Chuck’s never been on a plane before with stewardesses who ply you with food and drink and blankets and pillows and a hundred other niceties. The days of pilots being flown out on private jets for interviews and photoshoots and talk shows had been ending right as Chuck became a pilot. PPDC budgets had fallen and security concerns had skyrocketed in sync with each other, and by the time Chuck became a rock star the journos were flying in on their own dimes to see him wherever he was stationed.

Even now, with the war over, they have a security detail assigned to them, but most are sitting a couple of rows back, steadfastly pretending that nearly half of the passengers on this small, swank jet aren’t there for the sole purpose of making sure the Hansens are safe on their first real vacation ever.

Herc orders a beer for himself and for Chuck, and ignores the agent who drifts up the aisle to vet their drinks before they get them.

Chuck closes his eyes and sighs, vexed at yet another sign of how little he knows about the outside world. Herc doesn’t hold his hand or say anything to reassure him, but he can feel the steady confidence through the drift. After so much time in each other’s heads, the ghost drift is a permanent, low-level bond between them now, inescapable and, without the pressures of the war, entirely welcome.

They don’t know how to be apart from each other anymore.

The place they’re headed to is a lake in America, high up in the mountains and completely free of kaiju contamination. The whole area was seized by the military to build a major air base after the destruction of San Francisco, and it’s still about the safest place on earth to lay on a beach and soak up some sun. The lake is huge, the beaches are quiet even with the airbase in the distance, and there’s a lodge jaeger pilots have been using for years there. Herc plans to swim in clear water, then hike up into the mountains, and kiss Chuck breathless under a perfect sky.

It’s been a year since he watched Chuck walk away expecting to die. Herc doesn’t believe in miracles or a God that grants them, but he has his son back, and he can’t waste a second chance like that.

Striker wove this thing between them and pulled it tight. It’s taken them a year to realize that maybe it was a gift instead of a curse.

They’re gonna take some time together now, and find out.

Chuck, catching the shift in his thoughts, smiles at him. “Doesn’t worry you for a second that people are gonna find out, does it?”

Herc shrugs. “Blokes like these can keep a secret. And it’s not like we’re the first, or even the second pair.”

"It will come out eventually, though," Chuck responds. "The best secrets always do." He’s serious but not somber, and Herc realizes that his son just wants to hear him say it.

He cups Chuck’s chin with his fingers and pulls him close enough for a brief but intimate kiss, licking at his tongue. He pulls away and smiles, overwhelmed with a fondness he’s no longer so afraid of showing.

"I didn’t put my ass on the line for all those years just to have to listen to what those fuckers say now."

Chuck grins, showing his dimples. “Damned right.”

Across the aisle, their head of security sees them kiss again and doesn’t quite roll his eyes. Jaeger pilots are practically another species, so their relationship doesn’t bother him much; he’s worked for the PPDC too long for the Hansens to even rank on his list of the freakiest things he’s ever seen. He’s just not looking forward to the next two weeks of them sneaking off to do whatever it is incestuous jaeger pilots in love do.

There’s a laugh, and he glances over and catches a glimpse of the younger one’s fair skin, and makes a mental note to make sure they carry plenty of sunscreen with them. These guys saved the world; the least he can do is try to save them from sunburning their pasty asses to a crisp.


	6. Teeth (A Vikings Story)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set at some vague time after season 2, based on the idea that maybe Athelstan’s devil wasn’t really a devil but a guardian spirit, and it followed him back home.
> 
> Warnings: PG, Athelnar only if you already knew I shipped it. Bitey supernatural things.

The devil hides on the voyage back.

It’s not such a difficult thing, for the devil lives in a world somewhat bigger than the Athelstan does, and there are spaces on the ship that the humans cannot see or feel or know. All it has to do is hide itself away and watch as the Athelstan suffers the rain and the sun and the humor of his friends, who bring him back into their fold with crude jokes, teasing, and quiet acceptance.

If the devil had thought the big men had meant the Athelstan any true harm, it would have eaten them.

It’s not a very big devil, really, but its teeth are very sharp. 

*******

The devil hides in the Athelstan’s hair the first time it sees Kattegat, peeking out from the hidden spaces through the gap between the human’s hair and his ear. It has not seen many places so full of human life before. In the time before the Athelstan’s suffering on the cross had called it, it had lived in houses, in small villages, and was called a different name, and bowls of milk were left out for it at night.

In the stone houses the Athelstan had lived in before, no one had left milk out for it, and it had been one of the few devils that stayed. Those houses were ringed with wards, but the priests of the dead god forbade such wards and encouraged fear in their place; the broken wards had made the devil sneeze, but the stink of fear was worse.

It’s a mischievous, chaotic spirit, and it’s not even above tormenting the Athelstan a little, but it does not enjoy misery.

Kattegat is bright in its eyes, and shining.

One of the men on the dock sneers at the Athelstan, eyes full of old malice, and so the devil trips him without even sparing him a thought, sending the tall man crashing to the ground. The sound of his nose breaking is music to the devil’s ears as it skips invisibly ahead, eager to see its new home.

*******

The great hall is a wonder to the devil, because it is full of life and the bright streaks of small magics. The humans gather here at all hours of the day, it seems, and the Athelstan sleeps and eats here more often than not. There are other devils in Kattegat, and these come to the great hall too. One devil watches over a young girl, while another has a father and daughter under its protection. Some devils come and go, while some roam only Kattegat. The devils give each other space, hissing like cats if they come too close, and bristling with teeth if the warnings aren’t taken. Generally, though, the devils keep a sharp-edged peace with each other. There are many things to see and many to do, and the devils have full days.

The Athelstan’s devil likes Kattegat much better than the stone houses, for the Athelstan is much better liked here, and his shadow is darker here. The Athelstan had begun wasting away there, even as his body regained its strength, and that had angered the devil, because it could not guard his soul. It didn’t like problems it couldn’t sink its teeth into.

This place is better for the Athelstan.

And these people know the virtue of leaving out bowls of milk.

*******

The Helga can see it, the devil thinks. She and her mate have a smell to them like the air before a storm, and the devil likes that, though the Floki is going to get himself bitten one of these days if he doesn’t stop sniping at the Athelstan. Already the devil has tangled his feet and spoiled his beer, and he has many small burns that are almost healed now from the night that the devil broke his chair leg and tipped him into the fire. Mostly the Athelstan does not mind, so the devil only nips gently at the Floki, but sometimes his sharp tongue draws blood, and so the devil has made plans for him.

Already the Torstein has joked that the Floki should be called “the Unlucky”, and if the Floki knows what’s best for him, he’ll take it to heart. The devil did not like leaving the Athelstan alone to follow the Floki home at night, but it did, whispering in his ear as he slept.

That was the first time the Helga saw it, as she fed her little one by firelight. At least, the devil thinks she sees it. She’s an odd one, with big, luminous eyes, but she’s kind, and she smells good, and she leaves out milk for the devil, and sometimes fish, and when she smiles at it, the edges of her eyes crinkle.

If she warns the Floki to sort himself out, the devil is not there to see it.

Some humans just seem to like to learn the hard way.

*******

The devil likes the Ragnar’s big family, in part because the Athelstan loves them. They also have an energy about them, like maybe the gods have touched them, and they all smell like cinnamon and angry cats, which the devil likes very much.

If it was an unattached devil, it would probably have taken to the Rollo, because he is tempestuous and his heart is too big. As it is, the devil makes sure there are no rats near Rollo’s house, and it chased away the whisper of rot that had been spoiling the Siggy’s brewing. It also ate the magpies that were building a nest in their roof, but that may not have been entirely an unselfish act.

The devil likes eggs.

At night it watches over the Ragnar’s spawn as it does the Athelstan in his sleep. The Aslaug weaves spells over them, and some are true and good, and some are just words, but she doesn’t know the difference. It likes to follow her at night as she puts them into their big bed and it will chase away the nightmares that come in the time before dawn to feed on them. They will all grow big, like the Bjorn has. They all have great destinies in front of them, though the devil doesn’t really care.

The little one, the Sigurd, can see the devil. It’s sure of it, because he laughs when he sees it, and holds out its arms. That’s never going to work, of course.

Devils do not hug, thank you very much. 

Besides, although devils never much care for their own kind, there’s another devil, a young one, that it has caught watching over the smallest sons, and it doesn’t want to interfere.

It’s not the devil’s concern. It has the Athelstan to look after. 

Something else altogether watches over the Ragnar, and the devil stays away, except for the nights when the Athelstan and the Ragnar are close and warm, and then it hides in deference when the heralds of the raven god are near.

******* 

One morning the devil is chasing a cat, because cats are bitey and they hiss and some of them are tasty, when it catches a scent, or hears a noise, or both of those things tangled up at once. It knows what that means, oh yes, and it goes to wake the Athelstan, just because. It’s an important day, and even though it has to bite the Athelstan to get him up, it doesn’t feel too bad. It was only a little bite, a tiny one, really.

And it woke up the Ragnar, too. So it was totally justified.

The Lagertha is here, after all, in armor and war gear, and there are warriors with her on horses, and there is a small, unseen host with them, and war is coming.

It knows that war is coming just as it can tell winter is ending. Just as it knows that the Athelstan will go to battle at the Ragnar’s side, that there will be loss, and sorrow, and rage, and victory.

It will keep the Athelstan as safe as it can, until the man is taken beyond its reach, beyond the worlds it can see. If the Athelstan falls in battle, the devil will bite and bite and bite, and then it will go on again, to another bright soul that needs protection.

But for now, the devil sits on the Athelstan’s shoulder and bares all of its many, many shining teeth at the newcomers. It likes the Lagertha, but the invisible ones need to know that the Athelstan has a guardian spirit.

That’s its job, after all, and the devil takes its work very seriously.

It thinks that the Floki’s eyes may widen a bit when he comes into the hall, and the devil chitters at him, unheard. The Floki goes to stand on the other side of Ragnar, and the devil preens.

Damned right.


	7. Tell-Tale (Thor)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thunder betrays him.
> 
> Only Thorki because I ship it.

Thor looks out over the realm he will one day inherit and _hates_ it with everything he has. He hates his father and his father’s cruel words – You have less control than an baby shitting itself, Thor! – and he hates the councilors who stood by and smirked as Odin tore one of his sons apart for the thousandth time, and he hates his friends who think that being a prince makes him somehow immune to pain, and he hates Loki, who he can never seem to protect, even though –

He sees the way the skies have darkened overhead, and he stops, fear chasing the anger away before he can create a storm. Thor stares at his hands, trying to slow his breathing, trying to calm himself and not feel anything at all. It’s just that he feels everything so deeply, and the thunder… the thunder always betrays him.

The whole realm knows whenever something strikes Thor’s hear; it suffers with him, when the storms flood their fields and tear at their forests, when snow and ice freeze the roads and muffle the life of Asgard.

Odin cannot allow it, in good conscience, as king. Thor understands that. What he doesn’t understand is why it seems to shame his father so much that his son’s inner life is written so large across the sky. He doesn’t understand why that would make him weak. He only suffers Odin’s disappointment and wrath every time his emotions get too much for him to keep inside.

He cannot keep the sky from mimicking him, so he must learn to keep himself from feeling things so strongly. 

In time he will learn to suppress his emotions, to muffle his heart. In the years to come, his control will improve until he can call the lightning to serve his rage, to become an ally in battle, and dismiss it after. When other emotions overwhelm him, rain will only come if the sky is already primed for it. He will become who they think he is, and Asgard will know years of outstanding harvests and beautiful skies.

He will keep his attention focused narrowly to make it easier to control himself. Fighting is always safe, and Asgard crows about his prowess. His friends encourage him. His father sends him to battle after battle.

The only emotions he can’t stifle are those he feels for Loki. Loki can always pierce his defenses. Every fight, every reunion with his brother provokes the skies and draws Odin’s ire, and Thor tries so hard –

He won’t even realize it when he begins to withdraw from Loki, shunning him without ever meaning to, just trying to find the peace to keep the thunder quiet.

And, centuries later, he won’t understand where all the damage between them came from.


	8. Mercy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU -- the war against the kaiju was lost, but now the monsters they left behind fight the new war against the Precursors. Or: the one where they're vampires. Implied Becketcest, kind of.

“What do you think of this lot?”

Raleigh just shakes his head, and Yancy sighs, putting an arm around his brother’s shoulders. 

“I know you hate this, Rals, but you know we don’t have any choice.”

Raleigh sighs and leans into his brother, curling into his side. It’s been a long day. He nods silently as Yancy holds him close, and then looks over the rows of prisoners below them. The window they are sitting behind looks down into a room used as a containment area. The space below is brightly lit so that no one can see through the window. They can’t afford much in the way of niceties down here, but they’ve set it up to spare Raleigh as much as possible.

He’s the only one of them who can _see_ , who can tell which of their captives can survive the process of being turned, and which ones are going to be food. The others, no matter how healthy they seem, are too damaged, too toxic to be fed from, and they’ll be killed as quickly as possible.

“The ones in the front row are all sick, and that man with the two little girls. Both of them are healthy, but I can’t tell how strong they’ll grow up to be,” Raleigh says quietly. It happens that way sometimes, with the kids. No one wants to feed off them, and they won’t survive long down here without being turned. It’ll be up to whoever brought them in whether to try turning them or just put them down.

“Any we can keep?” Yancy asks gently.

“The three guys with shaved heads, the big one, and the blonde woman next to him. They all look like they can make it. The others are clean,” Raleigh says lifelessly, turning his head into Yancy’s chest. That means he’s done. 

Yancy signals the people waiting around them. He pulls Raleigh into his lap completely, letting his brother nuzzle into his neck and close his eyes. Nothing, not the disaster itself, nor the sickness, nor their turning had hurt Raleigh as much as simply being able to _see_ does, but they all rely on him. Without him, the colony wouldn’t have a chance. They know there are others who can _see_ , in other places, in other cities, but they are rare, and he’s the only one here.

Without him, there wouldn’t be enough of them to fight back, and their kind are the only ones left who can still fight.

Yancy doesn’t know if it’s a joke that the same Blue that kills so many people turns the survivors into monsters who have to feed on the rest to live. He doesn’t know if they’re actually vampires. He does know that they are the only ones who can fight back, the only ones strong enough and tough enough to do those Precursor motherfuckers any harm. Now that they’ve stopped sending the kaiju, the Precursors have moved troops into the cities, and the human monsters are defending the rest of the species. 

Defending them, and preying on them. They kill less than the Precursors do, to be fair, but they still have to go out and bring new blood down into the tunnels.

Every time they bring in more captives, Raleigh comes down here and sorts them into the ones that will have a chance to live, the ones that will die, and the ones they’ll feed off of to live another day.

The only mercy Yancy can offer his brother is small, but it means everything. Raleigh never has to touch any of them. Yancy feeds his brother from his own veins. It’s all he can do.

The soldiers are down in the room with the captives now, and although the plexiglass mutes most of the sounds, the screams of the little girls being taken away from their father are piercing.

Raleigh shudders, and like a child seeking comfort, slides his fangs into his brother’s neck, suckling lightly. Yancy holds his brother close, running his fingers through fine blond hair.

Eventually there is silence from below, and then there’s more noise, and people return to hear Raleigh’s verdicts. The next batch must be here. Yancy waits several moments to let Raleigh finish, and no one says a word, because they all know what this takes out of Raleigh by now.

There’s a thud against the plexiglass suddenly, and heads turn towards the window. There are only two captives down there in this batch, the last of the day, and one of them is gouging concrete out of the crumbling walls. He hurls it at the darkened window above him.

“Oi, you fuckers! Either hurry up and kill us, or get on with the rest of it!”

Raleigh licks over the marks he left behind, sealing them, and turns to look.

The two men have seen better days, but then so has everyone else. Fire still burns in them, though; anyone can see it in their eyes. Even though the older one is obviously sick, he glares up at them without any fear, his back ramrod straight. The younger one is angry, as angry as anyone Raleigh has ever seen; most captives have lost the will to fight by the time they get marched underground and brought to judgment. This one, though… 

Raleigh closes his eyes again for a moment, readying himself. Then he opens them again to _see_.

“What do you think?” Yancy prods gently, and to his shock, his brother laughs softly.

“The older one is sick, really sick, but he’s making it through. I don’t even know how he’s standing up, but he’ll turn on his own. Get him someplace dark and quiet.”

“And the redhead?”

“Strong as a fucking bull. Turn him, Yance. He’s ours now.”

Yancy blinks and glances from his brother to the angry, loud man down below. Even he can see the strength in him, in his body and his spirit; the fact that he’s handsome is just the icing on the cake. Raleigh’s expression is predatory, and jealousy stirs Yancy’s guts. 

“Ours, huh?” He tries to keep it light, but Raleigh hears the undertone there. He always does. 

Wrapping his arms around Yancy’s neck, Raleigh looks into his eyes. “You know we always share everything,” he says solemnly. Then he lifts his chin to the side, offering.

“Go get them,” Yancy orders the others, his voice remarkably calm. “Take them to the docs and get them looked at first, and then make sure the older one has whatever help he needs to make it through.”

“And the other one?”

Raleigh closes his eyes and licks his lips. Yancy has to take a moment before he remembers how to speak again.

“Bring him to our rooms.”


	9. Smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone, somewhere, wanted a fic where Chuck was kidnapped and Herc rescued him. I did this to it. I'm a monster. Totally gen, some gore, lots of Hansens.

When they tell him he can’t leave, Herc just smiles. 

The PPDC is alarmed enough by Chuck’s kidnapping that they freak out at the thought of another of their jaeger pilots going off the reservation. Herc is absolutely not to leave the Shatterdome, where he can be protected 24/7 by the same security teams that were supposed to be watching over Chuck. They don’t want this on the news yet because they’re trying to do damage control, and they don’t want to have to explain why the PPDC can’t protect its pilots in front of the Security Council. The PPDC is quick to remind Herc that their security forces are among the finest in the world. They’re on it. 

Herc’s gone within half an hour. Nobody, it seems, had told the gate guards to keep an eye out for him.

******* 

Scott Hansen is not a stupid man. He knows exactly what’s up when he comes home to find Herc sitting on his couch, flipping through TV channels.

It’s been two days now since Chuck was snatched right off the street, and the media might not have a clue, but that doesn’t mean Scott hasn’t already had word. He hasn’t exactly been expecting this visit, but he was sort of hoping for it. “Took you long enough,” he says, sitting down next to him. 

“You haven’t exactly been in touch,” Herc says, turning the TV off and letting the remote drop between them. “Are you in?”

“I don’t know. You ready to work with me again?”

“I’m not gonna beg you, Scotty.”

Scott snorts disdainfully. “You know I’m gonna help find the brat, but I need to know if we’re gonna spend the whole damned time sniping at each other, because that’s gonna fuck my process right up.”

“Your process?” Herc lifts an eyebrow. “You were trained to do your ‘process’ under fire, and you think _my_ attitude's gonna fuck it up?”

Scott just stares at him levelly, slowly raising an eyebrow.

“Fine,” Herc huffs, standing up. He runs a hand through his hair and goes to the window, looking out at the park across the street. In the harsh light, Herc looks much older than he should. “I’m not gonna apologize for getting you kicked out. Your PTSD was fucking up the drift and the pills you were taking made it worse. You were a danger to me and to Lucky and every—“

“I know what happened,” Scott cuts him off, annoyed. “I was there, yeah?”

“Then what—“

“I want you to stop tearing yourself up. You did the right thing, Herc. Ruined my life and saved it all at the same time, yeah? I’m good now. Better than I’ve been in a long time. So shut it, and let’s get to work, yeah?”

There’s a moment when he thinks Herc’s gonna go all misty-eyed on him, but to his vast relief his brother just nods in the end. Herc’s voice is a maybe a tiny bit rough, but they both pretend otherwise.

“You still got bad friends in bad places?”

Scott grins. “Fuck yeah I do.”

“So let’s go make some people bleed.”

******* 

It’s always been a source of amazement to the Hansens that nobody has spent any serious time digging into their backgrounds beyond the basics. The PPDC mostly cared about their compatibility; they could have been convicted murderers and the PPDC would probably have gone all out to have their records scrubbed. They’d sold the media a standard story: Scott was a soldier, Herc was a pilot, Scissure, Angie, Chuck, etc etc. The media had eaten it up, and there was more than enough angst in the basic story without going any further.

Nobody had ever really asked what they did in the military back then.

Nobody’s ever gone looking into what Scott does for a living these days.

It’s idiotic, but really damned convenient at the moment.

******* 

It turns out that Chuck’s been taken by old-fashioned terrorists instead of by kaiju cultists, because these guys just want money and attention; they haven’t spent the last few days cutting Chuck’s toes off to punish him for killing their gods, or whatever it is that crazy religious douchebags do for fun.

These guys have been on the edge of the radar for a while, although this is their first move in the really big leagues. It’s unfortunate for them that the Hansens only have to talk to a few people before getting enough intel to go to work. Nobody turns them down; either Herc’s reputation or Scott’s gets them through every time.

There’s a surveillance video that shows Chuck getting taken, his escorts getting shot seconds before he’s forced into a car. Being Chuck, he ignored the guns pointed at him and put up a hell of a fight, dealing an impressive amount of damage before they physically overwhelmed him and got him inside.

“He always was a vicious little shit,” Scott says fondly, watching Chuck punch one guy neatly in the throat, sending him to the ground.

“Takes after Angie,” Herc murmurs, eyes fixed on the screen and pride evident in his voice.

The prolonged fight means that there’s a lot of detail captured, like faces, car models, a partial license plate, and at least three injuries that were probably bad enough to send the kidnappers to a hospital.

It doesn’t take too much cross-checking to get a name.

It takes the Hansens five minutes alone in the guy’s hospital room with him to get more names, an address, and a good idea of the poor bastard’s religious views, free of charge.

Scott makes a call. Herc makes a call.

When the police hit that address an hour later, they find a cold storage warehouse with nobody in it. All the real action had taken place earlier. One of the drones that had taken up station over the building right after Herc’s call has footage of the people who’d bugged out. This video is excellent quality. 

Herc likes to think that the big guy with the beard is limping because Chuck got to him at some point. Chuck himself is bound up this time like Houdini, with the addition of a bag over his head. Even though he’s weaker than before, he still manages to make it hard for them to get him loaded into the car. Herc’s expression freezes when one of them awkwardly smashes his son in the head with his gun, but that’s all the sign he gives.

“We should try to take at least one of them alive,” Scott remarks, “Find out if they’ve got any plans for the rest of you lot.”

Herc laughs at that one. 

******* 

It’s just them, of course, when it all goes down. The PPDC and the local police are hours away from finding the place Chuck’s being held at. That leaves the Hansen brothers in their Sunday best, Kevlar and web gear and a shitload of tools designed specifically for jobs just like this one, where the idea is to make people as dead as possible as soon as possible. It should be more than enough.

The house is in a respectable neighborhood, with lots of landscaping and space between neighbors. It’s not nice enough to have security cameras, though. There’s light inside but not near the windows, and a couple of cars out front. There’s a house a block over that looks a lot like this one, and Herc picked up a flyer from the box on the for sale sign; these houses are part of a development, so the floor plans should be similar, if not identical.

Out of sight in the yard of the half-built house next door, Herc and Scott take a moment to review their plan.

“Which room is he in?” Scott asks.

Herc just looks at him, and Scott grimaces back. “Don’t tell me you’ve got no fucking ghost drift with him.”

“Course I do,” Herc scoffs. “That’s why we’re on this side. First floor, should be the second window there. He knows we’re here, and he's alone right now.”

“No survivors, then? Your call.”

“Not a single goddamn one.”

“Fair enough.”

They go in the window Chuck’s closest to, cutting the screen out and jimmying the lock as quietly as possible. They want a moment to assess him before the show starts.

Turns out it’s a bathroom, and Chuck’s been dumped in a bathtub half full of water. He’s soaking wet and mad as a cat when they pull the bag off his head, and Herc has to clamp a hand over his mouth when they cut the gag off. He has zero problems recognizing his dad and his uncle despite the masks they’re wearing, and he nods his head when they whisper into his ears, bringing him up to date. Despite the bruises he sports pretty much everywhere and the ugly wounds the zip ties have left around his wrists and ankles, he’s ready to back them up as soon as they get him upright and out of the tub.

Herc takes a quick moment to hold his son close, not minding at all when Scott adds himself to the equation.

After that, it’s all motion, sound, and blood.

The first one goes down when Scott slams a knife through the thin bone at his temple and into his brain. He eases the man down, wipes his knife off on the guy’s shirt, and hears the first gunshot behind him as Herc shoots a man in the throat. Even with the silencer, it’s clear that subtlety’s already off the table. Alright, then.

It goes quick after that. They move from room to room, and the remaining thirteen go down hard or easy but for good. They cover each other, and although they never worked like this together back in the day, years of drifting together smooths over the unfamiliarity. Chuck falls into sync with them, covering their backs, and it’s hard to know whether it’s instinct, the drift, or years of action movies that tell him what to do.

Chuck picks up a gun from one of the dead right away, and when it comes time to use it, when he sees that there’s a man around the corner that Uncle Scott doesn’t notice, he fires without hesitation. He looks up to find his father and uncle watching him, waiting to see how he’ll react to killing a man. He cocks an eyebrow at them; he’s been killing enemies face to face since he was sixteen, and it doesn’t make much difference to him what form they come in. The brothers exchange looks, but there’s really nothing to say.

They’re Hansens, after all. No mercy.

Scott shoots a woman and pushes her aside, and then they’re in a wide kitchen with a man who doesn’t seem to understand that he’s last one left.

Herc points at the last guy with his chin, eyes seeking his son’s confirmation that they’ve found the one in charge.

“That’s him,” Chuck says, eyes bright and cold, and Herc shoots the man in the head, just like that. One shot, and the back of his head splashes across the white pantry door.

Chuck smiles, and then nearly collapses into his father’s arms.

******* 

Things that were recorded by law enforcement and PPDC security:

• At 10:35pm, a delivery truck with the words “LUCKY Laundry Service” on the sides stops in the middle of the main street outside the gates to the Shatterdome. The door in back rolls up about two feet and two men exit into the street. The truck immediately takes off again.

• At 10:37pm, the men identify themselves to PPDC Security as Rangers Hercules “Herc” Hansen and Charles “Chuck” Hansen. Both are immediately taken to Medical, where Chuck Hansen is treated for multiple abrasions, contusions, dehydration, a possible concussion, and blood loss from a scalp wound. Herc Hansen requires no medical aid.

• At 10:40pm, police raid a house in an upper class neighborhood. There are 14 bodies in the house and what will turn out to be a great deal of information on a number of up-and-coming terrorist groups that turn out to be funded by a major kaiju cult.

• At 5:40am, the “LUCKY Laundry Service” truck will be found abandoned in a theatre parking lot. The security camera footage isn’t clear enough to be useful. The driver leaves nothing behind and cannot be found.

• By 2:30pm the next day, the head of PPDC Security will conclude privately that the Hansens are full of shit, and publicly, that it appears that Chuck Hansen was rescued by unknown individuals who then alerted his father by cell phone and transported both of them back to the Shatterdome without identifying themselves. Private vigilantism is discouraged. The investigation will continue.

Things that are infinitely more important and will go forever unrecorded by people who don’t need to know:

• The awkward but long hug between the brothers Hansen, who have missed each other so profoundly that they haven’t been able to admit it out loud.

• The way Chuck threatened to hurt Scott if he called him “sprog” again, and the way Scott’s eyes crinkled as he laughed.

• The cell phone numbers and addresses they all have memorized now.

• The warm place they all three share in the ghost drift now, which never has and never will quite let them go.

******* 

When Chuck wakes up for the first time after Pitfall, he’s really not at all surprised to find his father asleep, leaning into his uncle’s shoulder. 

Scott just smiles, and holds Herc a little closer.


	10. Begin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the beginning of a much longer story which I may never finish. Seriously, there's over 12K words of it, and it's a disjointed mess. It occurred to me, though, that the very beginning of it made an okay fic of its own, so here we go.

The day before they close the Breach, Raleigh Becket recognizes Chuck Hansen as his soul mate. It’s easily the second most traumatic thing that’s happened to him in his entire life, but he refuses to do a damned thing about it.

Chuck doesn’t have a clue. The recognition doesn’t go both ways yet – it doesn’t always happen simultaneously – but Raleigh knows it would come in time. The thing is, they don’t have any of that. Pitfall is soon, and no matter how stiff Pentecost’s upper lip may be, Raleigh doesn’t have any illusion that they’re going to survive it. Soul mates might survive the death of each other, but it’s not likely, and Raleigh knows he won’t make it through. Yancy took too much out of him. He can’t imagine wanting to live after that anyway. 

Chuck doesn’t need to know that his life depends on more than his own skill as a pilot – that now it depends on Raleigh not dying either.

Raleigh himself doesn’t need the shit show that would happen if he told Chuck all that now. He can picture exactly what the other man would say, and how he’d say it. A few days later Chuck would recognize him and come around, but they don’t have that time – and Chuck rejecting him isn’t a memory Raleigh wants to carry to his fucking grave with him, thank you very much.

So he says nothing, and avoids Chuck like the plague, and the clock rolls forward. It hurts, but everything has hurt for so long that it’s just another day, right up until the kaiju alarms ring.

He listens to Pentecost’s speech about being at the edge of their hope and doesn’t laugh for Mako’s sake. Raleigh has found the single most valuable thing that any man or woman can hope for, and there’s no hope of keeping it, no hope for anything at all. 

Hopelessness is oddly freeing.

******* 

He fights with everything he has, but it feels like he’s already dead.

Maybe that’s why they win, but it makes climbing into the escape pod almost more than he can handle. He’s fairly sure that the only reason he makes it is a sort of kneejerk survival instinct, the same thing that got him back to shore the first time Gypsy was lost on his watch. It’s neither glorious nor heroic, and, just like last time, he wonders why he bothered.

Later he waits on top of his escape pod and assumes he must be in shock, because he hasn’t died yet. It’s coming, he knows. He saw Striker go. Sometime soon, his heart will stop, or the grief for a man he barely knew will rip him in two. He feels like a hollow man already, a shell of himself that moves and speaks and tries to offer Mako what comfort he can. He barely remembers how to go through the motions.

He hopes there’s someone who can be there for her when he’s gone. He would’ve stood up for her, as her co-pilot and her friend. Maybe Herc can, though he doesn’t know how close they were.

And Herc will have his own grief, because Chuck…

The thought is like getting the breath knocked out of him, even though he knows it’s not the real thing yet. It’s just panic this time. The thought that Chuck will never, ever…

Jesus, the waiting is _unbearable_.

Raleigh had never thought of suicide, even during the blackest days after Yancy. Maybe this time, though, he could just let go, instead of carrying this weight a second longer. He could let the water take him, and just slip over the side, letting the weight of his gear pull him under. He’s so caught up in imagining it that he almost doesn’t hear the roar of aircraft overhead.

He’s still staring into the water when the rescue divers attach the harness to his drive suit and haul him up into a helo.

Mako’s already up there, looking exhausted and exalted and crushed all at the same time, and he sits next to her, slumping down. If he had more strength, he’d be ashamed of himself for thinking about abandoning her.

And then he realizes that the body stretched out on the floor of the helo is Chuck Hansen, who’s groaning in pain but completely conscious. Despite his own pain and exhaustion, Raleigh has to touch him, has to feel that Chuck is real and solid and here. He goes down on his knees in the cramped space, forcing his numb body to obey him, and promptly collapses awkwardly in a sort of halo around Chuck’s head. It’s okay, though, because he doesn’t fall on him, and because now he can kiss him, even though it’s upside down and it takes two tries to find his mouth, the first barely missing Chuck’s eyeball.

Everything is gonna be fine now, despite the look of murderous, befuddled outrage on his soul mate’s face. Or maybe because of it.

“Hello, sweetheart,” Raleigh says, smiling drunkenly right before passing out completely.

It’s a brand new world.


	11. Warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for archerybushidokid on tumblr for the prompt: "This is without a doubt the stupidest plan you've ever had. Of course I'm in."
> 
> I was going for short and funny, but that's not where this went, so instead have pre-PPDC Becket angst, a little fluff, and Yancy's terrible opinions on Chinese food.

Raleigh slammed the door behind him and threw his backpack on the couch on his way to the kitchen. He was _starving_. Singing misheard lyrics from a song he sort of liked, he rifled through the fridge before pulling out enough leftovers. He improvised a sandwich out of the remains of their last couple of dinners, considered it with a discerning eye, and added mustard.

The Beckets had been forced to learn to cook to stretch their food budget, and they were both pretty decent at it, though Raleigh did most of the cooking. Their routine was fairly simple. He came home from school, did his homework, fixed dinner for himself and Yancy, and ate in front of the computer, waiting for his brother to get home from work. When he did, they had an hour or two of free time together before crashing for the night. In the morning, they’d get up to do it again. They both had weekend jobs at the same cabinet-making shop, but they spent as much time as possible together anyway. With the last of the money their dad had left behind running out, the collection of shit jobs they’d picked up was just barely keeping them together. The time they could spend together somehow made it all worth it.

That was the reason that the sight of his brother’s backpack and jacket on the kitchen table didn’t worry him so much as make him happy. It was hours earlier than Yancy usually came home, so, taking an inhumanly large bite of his sandwich, he went looking for him.

There wasn’t far to look. They’d moved their stuff downstairs and sealed off the upper floor originally because they couldn’t afford to heat the whole place, but they were mostly happy to keep it that way even though it would be summer soon. Their parents’ bedroom and their childhood rooms were up there, and other things from a past that seemed farther away every day. Raleigh rarely thought about the upstairs these days; everything that really mattered was downstairs now.

“Anssy?” he called through and around the sandwich. 

There was no response, and he quickly ran out of downstairs to investigate, so he reluctantly checked the stairs and found that the heavy plastic sheeting they’d blocked it off with had been pried loose at one corner. With a sigh, he got the rest of the sandwich down before going up. 

He didn’t like it when Yancy went upstairs. He was pretty sure Yancy blamed himself for their dad abandoning them, even though that made no goddamned sense at all, and his brother would come up here and walk around when he needed to think through stuff. It was like working through their past. If you went into their mom’s closet and shut the door, you could still pick up the scent of her favorite perfume from her clothes. They’d sold off everything that had belonged to their dad already. Yancy would go upstairs sad and come down angry, frustrated at the life they were barely keeping together and how close he was to failing Raleigh completely, but that was better, healthier, than the sadness. It didn’t make things any easier downstairs, but he’d even out the next day and they’d be back to ‘normal’.

It was how he was, even if it drove Raleigh crazy.

Today Yancy was upstairs in their parent’s bedroom, sitting on the floor underneath one of the windows. The room was cool and kinda dark with all the windows sealed, but Yancy had their laptop, and the light from that was more than enough.

“Sup?” Raleigh asked, immediately going to sit next to him. 

“Nada.”

“Really? That’s why you’re home early and sitting up here. Huh.” He scootched up next to his brother, meaning to look at the screen, but Yancy flipped the cover shut before he got more than a glance.

“Really,” Yancy said, but it was more of a whisper than anything else, and he seemed so defeated suddenly that Raleigh pushed the laptop out of the way and put his arms around him.

“What happened?” he asked softly as Yancy sighed and gave up. Yancy had always been spectacularly terrible at lying to him. Raleigh’s not even sure why he still tries to shield him from things he needs to know.

“I got laid off. The mill’s shut down completely, gone bankrupt. And that means the Northridge shop’s closing down too.”

There was a silence as Raleigh processed this. His very first reaction, to be honest, was relief, because he hated working at the shop on the weekends. He’s underage and they were only letting him work there as a favor to Yance, so he got all the shit jobs and the worst pay. Or at least, he did. That’s when it finally sank in. They have the house – Dominique had set up a living trust for the house which would pay the taxes on it for the next fifteen years – but it’s the only thing they have beyond each other. They’ve always been on the edge of losing their little family, of getting the utilities turned off or running out of food, of Raleigh getting picked up by Children’s Services and pushed into a foster home. Yancy insisted he get his diploma, so he’s been wasting his days at high school when he could have been working, bringing in money – _fuck_. The panic built, but he pushed it down, because he already knew how Yancy was taking it, and he couldn’t allow that.

“It’s okay,” the younger brother said, pulling Yancy closer. “We’ll be okay. We always are.”

“Fuck, we’ve only got enough money for next month, Raleigh. Richard’s money is almost gone, and I don’t even know if I’m going to get my last check. I’ve been hitting the employment sites up for four hours now and there are basically no jobs, not even on the state work crews. The other sawmills already grabbed up Adler’s best and they’re full up, and right now that leaves jack shit,” Yancy’s words came out of him in a rush, and even though he hadn’t cried since their dad – Richard – abandoned them, Raleigh could hear the tremor in them.

“There’s always something,” Raleigh offered up, knowing how lame it was. “We just need a plan.”

It was meant to be a joke, and it got a flicker of a smile from Yancy. Right after their father fucked off, huddled up together in front of the fireplace, they had been full of plans. Shit plans, for the most part, since they hadn’t really known much about how the world worked back then, but still PLANS, all-caps. Hitch-hiking to Arizona, working as a trucker, getting hired on a fishing boat, and lying about his age to get hired to tend bar had all been proposed and dismissed for real reasons, but then Raleigh had tried to lighten the mood with plans that were progressively goofier. Those plans had them stowing away on a Japanese freighter and then working as male escorts in Tokyo, taking videos of themselves doing totally ordinary things and selling them as fetish videos on the internet, and, Raleigh’s favorite: Yancy Becket, professional pole dancer. 

After that, whenever things were harder than usual, Raleigh would break out a new and equally batshit plan to make his brother smile. Yancy still didn’t know if Raleigh worked on them ahead of time or just pulled them out of his ass.

“Got anything new?” Yancy asked, trying to balance himself out. “Any opportunities open up for me to teach ballet at your school? Yoga, maybe?”

“I’m pretty sure Mrs. Harpe would appreciate seeing you in spandex,” Raleigh tried, waggling his eyebrows.

“Dude, gross. I’m still scarred from spending detention in her class,” Yancy pulled a face. “Besides, why do all of your plans have me getting perved on?”

“You gotta work with your strengths, pretty boy.”

He probably deserved the elbow Yancy planted in his ribs for that.

“Okay, no on being Harpe’s houseboy, then?”

“You’re a horrible person and a worse brother,” Yancy grumbled, sitting up to throw an arm around his neck. He scrubbed his knuckles across Raleigh’s scalp as he tried to squirm away. “What else ya got?”

“There’s a new spa opening up downtown. Maybe you could get a job sanding down old ladies’ feet?”

Yancy just grimaced. “You know you need a state cosmetology license for that?”

“Wait, you looked into it?”

“Looked into just about everything, bro. Pedicurist included,” Yancy complained. He dramatically waved his free hand at nothing and everything. “Since the kaiju started popping up, the economy’s gone to shit. A couple of giant monsters and suddenly nobody wants to live near the coast anymore. Jesus.”

It got him a smile, but then Raleigh ducked his head and Yancy couldn’t read that. He let him be for a while, and they sat together, close and warm, in the silence.

Last winter they’d cuddled up in one bed together, piling up everything remotely blanket-like on top for warmth. Being close didn’t seem particularly strange anymore. It was more like essential.

After Raleigh began to fidget, though, he straightened up a little. Time to move on. Kid didn’t need to be worrying more than they had to.

“So, got anything for me that doesn’t involve feet?” 

Raleigh shrugged, but he was still fidgeting, and Yancy knew him better than anyone.

“C’mon, kiddo. Cough it up.”

Raleigh shrugged again, but then he reached over his brother and grabbed the laptop. He flipped it open, waited, and then brought something up in the browser before shoving the whole thing at Yancy to look at.

_Pan Pacific Defense Corps: Things to Know Before You Apply_

Yancy read the first couple of lines of it, and then checked to see if it was an official site. It was. He glanced at Raleigh, but his brother was staring fixedly off at something off in the indeterminate distance and wouldn’t budge. He went back and read the rest of it before leaning back and sighing.

“Are you serious?”

Raleigh nodded before looking at him, his face set in a mulish expression Yancy knew far too well. His brother might be optimistic and easy-going most of the time, but he had a stubborn streak _miles_ wide. “I’ve been looking at it for a couple of months.”

It occurred to him suddenly that maybe Raleigh was planning on doing this on his own, and he felt sick. They’d been the Becket brothers, plural, forever, but they’d been the Becket brothers, singular, since Richard had fucking deserted them. They were a unit now, a family.

“You’re not gonna be legal until December, Raleigh. We need something a little sooner than that,” he said, sounding a lot pettier than he’d hoped.

Raleigh glanced up at him quizzically. “My age isn’t gonna make any difference if we make it into the Academy. All they care about is drift compatibility.”

“What Academy?”

“The _Jaeger_ Academy, on _Kodiak_ , dumbass, and if you pass the compatibility screenings they don’t give a shit if you’re under 18. There’s already been a woman from Jakarta and that guy from South Korea who got in while they were 17. Even if we fucking fail in the end, that’s, like 6 months room and board, right? And if we make it, fuck, we’d be jaeger pilots, Yance!”

And he hated that he said it, but it came out anyway: “We?”

His brother stared at him, and for a brief second he thought he’d hurt his feelings, but then Raleigh doubled down and Yancy got himself elbowed in the ribs, hard enough for emphasis. “Yeah. Who the hell am I supposed to be drift compatible with if you’re not there?” 

“Look, Raleigh…” he started, running a hand through his hair. It was a lot to take in all at once, and he had a feeling he wasn’t running on all cylinders anyway. “There’s no guarantee they’d keep us together. The military doesn’t work like that.”

“Not the regular military, Yance. The Jaeger program. They want family members because they drift better. You remember that show we saw about the Gage twins? ‘The deeper the bond, the better you fight’? We’re fucking perfect for it.”

Raleigh was so goddamned earnest about it, and Yancy let his head thunk back into the wall. This morning he’d gone to his shitty job like every other day of his shitty life, and then it had all fallen apart, until he wasn’t sure how he was even gonna keep food on the table. And now Raleigh was seriously talking about fighting giant monsters for a living, and, shit, he didn’t know if that was insane or actually pretty solid. 

He’d seen the videos, of course. Trespasser showed up, scared the shit out of everybody, and basically ate Northern California. The Jaegers and their Rangers looked fucking awesome on the news and in the videos that were everywhere now. _Join the PPDC and Save the World!_

It just doesn’t seem real. 

He was going to college, once. He was going to get a degree and then a job and then he was going to have his own life. He would miss Raleigh, but pretty soon Raleigh would be doing the exact same thing with his life: going out and finding it. Brothers did that, all the time, separating without losing each other. It was the natural progression of things.  
In two weeks, Raleigh would graduate, and in a few months he’d be old enough for whatever life he could make, and the idea of him leaving, of Yancy coming back home each night to nothing but silence scared the hell out of him now. But was that enough reason to let the PPDC wire their heads together?

Maybe that’s just all there was left. Maybe that was who they were. He’s got fear and Raleigh’s got hope, and together they’ve survived this long. Maybe it would be enough.  
Besides, as long as he had Raleigh with him, there wasn’t much left for him to lose. 

“Yance?”

Raleigh was quiet, and Yancy knew he thought he’d screwed up, that he’d made the situation worse. He might even be afraid he’d driven a wedge between them, and Yancy couldn’t have him thinking that.

“Listen to me, kid,” he said, laying his fingers against Raleigh’s lips to stop him from saying anything untrue. “This is without a doubt the stupidest plan you’ve ever had. Of course I’m in.”

“Yeah?” Jesus fucking Christ, sometimes Raleigh’s smile was like looking into the goddamned sun. 

“Yeah, as long as pole dancing isn’t involved in any way, why not? Tomorrow we’ll go see what’s up with the recruiter. You want Chinese tonight?” He got up and stretched, genuinely smiling at his little brother for the first time this afternoon. Raleigh lit up even further, which honestly shouldn’t be physically possible.

“I thought we agreed that Chinese was out of our budget,” Raleigh teased.

“Dude, we’re gonna be rock stars, right? I think we can afford a few eggrolls and that terrible soup you like so much.” Yancy’s voice drifted down the hallway as he headed to the stairs.

Raleigh scrambled up and went after him. “Hot and sour soup is the food of the gods, you redneck.”

“That’s me, Raw-lee. Just a good ol’ boy from waaaaay up north. And it still tastes like dish soap.”

“Only because you’re a moron.”

The upper half of the house grew quiet again as the bickering moved downstairs and the plastic sheeting was carefully tacked back into place.

Memories and regrets would have to wait for another day.

Right now, they had hope.


	12. Golden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The problem with saving the world is trying to figure out what to do with your life afterwards.
> 
> Becketcest

The bar is exclusive and swanky and pretentious, the sort of place that Raleigh might have been impressed by once, though he’d probably have been more interested in the club downstairs. It’s also big, and the thing he likes most about it is that there’s hardly anyone there right now, and none of them seems to give a fuck about him.  


The bar’s on the top floor of their hotel, split between a sleekly decorated interior and patios outside that are a little less self-conscious. Unlike most of the patrons today, Raleigh’s outside, watching the sun climb down over Los Angeles. He’s more comfortable out here, where the air’s warm and he can hear the persistent hum of the city, than inside with the refrigerated air and murmur of other people’s conversations.  


It’s not really private, but it feels more like it than not, with his table discreetly obscured from those inside by plants and a strategically placed carved wooden screen. The whole thing is more a suggestion that people mind their own business than any real deterrent, but that seems to be all that’s needed in this place, and his table is far from the only one set up this way. There’s only a few other people out on the patio with him, and most of them are staff members adjusting the awnings and prepping for the evening.  


It's fucking bliss after the blur of the last two months. First there was Pitfall, and then there was Medical, and then there was this press tour that hadn’t seemed like it would ever end. Not until today, when he’d smiled and waved for the last official photo op, shaken the last hand stuck in his way, and retreated up here to lick his wounds, so to speak. 

For all that he'd nearly broken himself to save it, humanity can fuck off right now. He’s mortally tired of pretending to care about the stories people told him, of smiling for every goddamned camera in existence, and of carrying the burden of everyone's expectations. 

"What will you do _now_ , Ranger Becket?" a falsetto voice asks.

Yancy sets a beer down in front of him at the same time he chirps what has to be the most annoying question of all time, and slides into the seat next to him. They've been asked the same question roughly a billion times since Pitfall, and the fact that neither of them has a real answer makes it worse.

"Push you off the roof for asking," Raleigh growls, doing a passible imitation of Chuck Hansen.  


"After I got us beer? That’s cold, dude. Cold."  


Raleigh can’t really maintain Hansen-level attitude at the moment, though, and he ends up tipping his bottle at Yancy before taking a drink and smiling.  


“Heh. You were right. This shit is awesome.”  


“Told ya.” Yancy takes a slower, more appreciative drink before leaning back in his chair and looking out at the view.

LA got hit hard in the war, but it's hard to tell that kaiju were involved here. There’s no radioactive zones here, like in Sydney and Oakland, and the blue-poisoned areas have been neatly contained. The kaiju never got very far inland, and the wreckage had been cleared. If it wasn't for the Wall cutting the city off from the sea, you might not know that anything more than an earthquake had hit the place. In another couple of years, the Wall might be gone too. Right now, though, all the lights are on in the shadow of the Wall, while the hills and tall buildings like this one still bask in the late sun. It's a strangely beautiful dichotomy, and one that Yancy has yet to grow tired of, despite the lack of faith in him and the whole jaeger program that the Wall represents.

Raleigh, on the other hand, takes the time to really look at his brother, refreshing details he already knows by heart. He's so lucky to still have Yancy, after Knifehead, after Pitfall, after their whole fucking life since Mom died. Yancy looks exhausted, and Raleigh can feel it, the way he feels everything else. They've drifted so long that he knows his brother like he knows himself. Maybe that's more than a man needs to know about anyone else, but it's what they've got, and he's long past being 'comfortable' with it, or any of the other ways the interviewers like to phrase the same question. Raleigh honestly doesn't know how he'd even live without Yancy now.

It's not hyperbole. After Knifehead, Yancy had been in a coma for almost two months, and Raleigh still has nightmares about that silence in his head. Now, after so many more years in the drift, so many more close calls, he doesn't really like it when he can't see his brother, even though the ghosting has grown so much stronger. Being in different rooms is unpleasant, and different buildings are out of the question. The jaeger program had understood, treating pilots like one, single unit, but the rest of the world hadn't, and still doesn't get it.  


Even on this tour, the hosts at every single stop kept booking them separate rooms and setting them up for individual appearances, trying to maximize their exposure. The room thing was fine – they just ignored one of them – but the Marshal had been forced to change the pilot schedules each time. That was only the beginning of it. 

The Brothers Becket have done everything they were asked to, up to and including this world tour, and now, as of today, they are done. That much is definite. Their future is the problem: it's wide open, and Raleigh’s not sure they fit anywhere now.

The opportunities are endless, and the offers have poured in. It's dizzying. They could stay with the PPDC, fuck off to a monastery, be spokespeople for almost anything, join about a billion different foundations or small start-ups, write shocking tell-alls about the war, or find a career in porn. Maybe a fifth of those offers are for the Becket brothers together, as a team. Mostly they want one or the other: the more mature Becket (Yancy, still, somehow) or the rock star Becket (Raleigh, no matter how much he'd changed).

Only the porn studios have been very specific about wanting both of them.

It would help if either one of them knew what they were doing, but they never really expected to survive the war, so they never planned for it. 

They've got nothing but each other, and no one else seems to get that, except maybe those who’ve been there too.

"Got an email from Herc a few minutes ago," Yancy says, pulling out his phone. 

"Yeah?" Despite the fact that Chuck and Raleigh are insanely competitive with each other, the Hansens and the Beckets had gotten pretty close over the last couple of years. Part of that had come from what they were – some of the last Rangers left – but most of it was simple friendship, despite all their conflicting personalities. Or maybe because of them, to be honest.  


The Australians' plans were already made, decided on as they waited for Chuck to get out of Medical. Both Hansens are retired as of this afternoon and probably already out of the country by now. Neither is the type to dither around after decisions have been made. 

"Know how they were going to stay with Scott?"

Scott Hansen, disgraced PPDC Ranger, had shown up at the Hong Kong Shatterdome two days after Pitfall and taken up guardianship of his injured family, and by extension, the Beckets, while they were in Medical. He'd done his time, gotten his PTSD diagnosed and treated properly, not at all like the PPDC had done it, and Herc had been happy to see him.

"Yeah." 

"Scott's place turned out to be an island off the coast somewhere. Herc invited us to come stay with them all while we get our shit sorted out. Said there's plenty of room."

Yancy hands over his phone, and there's a picture of a white-washed cinderblock building with some kind of patio off to the side and the ocean in the background. It's not a resort by any means, but it looks sturdy and well-kept. It’s not fancy, but it’s nice.

"How the hell did Scott get his hands on an island?" Raleigh wonders, and Yancy shrugs.

"Probably cheap. That's about as far on the wrong side of the Wall as you can get."

They drink in silence for a bit after that, which might be mistaken for contemplation by everyone else. The ghost drift thrums between them, though, and Raleigh can feel that Yancy’s still holding something back. 

His brother licks his lips, and Raleigh's eyes track the movement. 

His brother, his co-pilot, and his lover. 

It wasn’t supposed to be forever, but to be honest, he's stopped looking for anyone else.

It was the drift or the stress or the isolation. Maybe it was just something perverted and wrong with them. Raleigh has stopped asking questions he doesn't want answers to anymore.

It's something they're going to have to deal with, though, wherever they go.

And the thought strikes him that maybe Yancy doesn't want to. Maybe, with Gipsy gone, he doesn't want to live a life where fucking your brother, being exclusive with your own brother, seems like the best future for both of them.

And it's not like he ever asked him...

Yancy must catch something of that, because he glances up and gives Raleigh a searching look. 

"There's something else you might want to take a look at," He says, taking his phone. He thumbs through a few things and then hands it back.

It's an email, sent about an hour ago, from that British biotech company that's been after Yancy -- just Yancy -- on and off for a year now. They'd sent him congratulations before the Beckets had even made it back to dry land after Pitfall, and they've been freaking relentless since then. The overly excited tone of this email isn't really a surprise, but the fact that there's a plane ticket attached to it is. The flight is tomorrow morning; one person, first class.

The pang that goes through Raleigh is indescribable: fear? Hurt? Panic? He doesn't know. 

"Didn't know they'd made that much progress with you," he mumbles, handing the phone back.

"Me neither," Yancy smiles, but his eyes are solemn. "I haven't said anything to them; I think they're hoping I'll just say 'fuck it' and jump on the plane. Subtlety doesn't really seem to be their thing."

"So what are you going to do?" Raleigh asks casually, picking at the label on his bottle. It seems to take all his attention, but of course Yancy knows better.

"I'd like to get on a plane tomorrow, to be honest. I'm fucking tired of reveille and neural scans and the taste of metal in everything. Now that Gypsy's gone, I just..." He trailed off, not sure how to say any of this. 

"It's alright," Raleigh says, looking anywhere but at him. "Didn't expect you'd want to go back to Hong Kong anyway."

He can feel something odd, like a dull shade of gray, wash over him, and he slumps down in his chair so he can lean his head back and close his eyes. He's so tired now, of almost everything. 

Yancy says something, but Raleigh doesn't catch it, and he's really not 100% sure he wants to.

The kick to his shin gets his attention, though.

"What the hell?!"

"I said, you are such a dumbass."

"What's your goddamned problem?" Raleigh demands, rubbing his leg.

"What do you want to do now, Ranger Becket?" His brother asks mockingly.

"Go fuck yourself."

"Answer the question." Yancy grabs his bicep and pulls him up until they are face to face.

"You really wanna know?" 

Raleigh's mouth tightens down to that flat line that means he's really angry, and Yancy almost let go of his arm before deciding against it.

"We’ve been getting offers this whole trip, and you haven't told me a single thing about what you want, Raleigh, you know that? All I get is your half-assed reactions to stuff. So, yeah, I really wanna know."

It's times like this when he wishes that all the bullshit they say about the drift is true, and that it really did let them read each other's minds. He doesn't really want to say anything at all; he wants Yancy to know these things without Raleigh ever having to say a word.

But he doesn't.

Or maybe he just needs to hear Raleigh say it. So for once, Raleigh does.

"I've spent the last, what, eight years in your head? I don't even know if I can live on my own anymore, I'm so tied up in you. And here's the thing: I don't want that to change. I don't want to adjust, and I don't want to 'adapt to our new circumstances' or whatever that asshole called it." Raleigh's tone is clipped and curt, but his eyes are telling a different story and the ghost drift rumbles with unhappiness.

Yancy smiles faintly and goes in for the kill.

"That's what you don't want. Tell me what you want, Raleigh."

"Jesus! Don't you get it? I want _you_. I want to stay together until we die, because I wouldn't even know what to do if I didn't have to wake your lazy ass up every morning, and how fucking sad is that? I don't care where we go, as long as we do it together." 

Raleigh's voice is louder than either of them expected.

Yancy sits back, exhaling slowly, and Raleigh can't read him, but neither of them looks away.

"So that's really what you want?"

The ghost drift pulses between them like the heartbeat of a bird.

Maybe they don't need to say anything else. 

Right now, Yancy just leans down and kisses his brother's mouth.

Full on, holding nothing back. Sweet and tender, welcoming the control that Raleigh has only ever given up to him.

It’s far from being their first kiss-- that had been lightning-quick and full of terror, stolen in the drive room showers back when Gipsy was shiny and new.

It is the first time they have ever done anything like it in public, though. 

Raleigh gets it.

All those careful years and the excuses they had made to each other are done, but they are both still here, and this thing between them is still here, and Yancy will own it if Raleigh will. It’s an act of devotion.

Raleigh deepens their kiss for a long, long moment before slowly pulling away until their mouths are almost touching and there's enough free air to ask the next question.

"What do _you_ want, Ranger Becket?" he murmurs, only for Yancy's ears.

Smiling softly, Yancy slid his fingers into Raleigh's hair and leaned forward to whisper in his ear.

"I want to take you downstairs and lay you out on my bed, and then I'm going to make you forget that anyone else has ever touched you. I want to make love to you until you see stars. And tomorrow, when your legs work again, I want to buy matching rings, so you’ll always remember that I promise to love you for the rest of my life.”

Raleigh's eyes are wide and wondering when he pulls back, and so blue that Yancy can only marvel at them, even though he knows his own eyes are about the same.

"You wanna get married?" Raleigh whispers.

Yancy blushes. “I mean, aren’t we already? Even if we never find someone to say the words, it doesn't matter, as long as there's you and me."

Raleigh just kisses him again, because his answer is there in the drift, alive and radiant.

"And afterwards," Yancy says, sitting back and smiling smugly, "we're going to Australia."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. I know for a fact that Hansen Junior made a play for you back in Hong Kong, and it's my husbandly duty to go kick his ass."

Raleigh snorted. "Is that so?"

"Absolutely."

He reaches out and grabs Yancy's hand, then kisses the place where his ring would go. "He's got like 40 pounds of muscle on you, so you'd better take me downstairs now and give me something else to remember you by."

"It's not how much meat you have that counts; it's how you use it," Yancy leers, waggling his eyebrows.

"Jesus, that's fucking _terrible_. I want a divorce."

"Mmm," Yancy kisses him softly. "Not a chance."

The few other patrons and the bar staff aren't stupid or blind, and the kissing brothers don't go completely unnoticed. A video would be worth a lot of money, confirming decades of rumors about the jaeger pilots, but somehow none are taken. It's not really that kind of place. It's not clear that anything could tarnish the reputation of the Becket brothers at this point, after they and the Hansens went down to the Breach and came back saviors, but no one seems to want to try it.

It's a long, golden afternoon, about to slip into a gentle evening, and the world is still here, and maybe, for once, that's all anyone needs.


	13. Rebirth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Herc Hansen faces the future of his family. It's not what he expected. For one thing, there's a lot more Beckets.

Herc paced slowly across the lobby, watching the city outside.  Despite the jagged remains of the Wall of Life still standing along the shoreline, Los Angeles seemed determined to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary had happened over the last several years.  This Shatterdome had been dismantled before the end of the war, scavenged for equipment and materials to reinforce the Wall, and although Herc couldn’t see it from here, he’d heard the site was surrounded by solid fencing so it could be more efficiently ignored by everyone around it.  So far, maybe out of some sense of civic shame, the city hadn’t even requested that the land be returned to them.

The freeways were crowded again, and the destroyed areas were almost indistinguishable from the rest of the city from this distance.  They were dismantling the Wall a piece at a time, using it to rebuild, and Herc supposed there was a circle of life analogy to be made there, but he was too tired to make it.  Resting his forehead against the cool glass, he closed his eyes for a moment, willing his headache to go away.  The window vibrated lightly under his touch; outside everything was light and heat and movement.  Inside there was recycled air, sterile cleanliness, and almost nothing else.

This entire floor of the hospital had been shut down, and the waiting room was empty except for Herc, his brother, and a small group of his staff clustered around a table in the corner.  They were talking quietly, as much in deference to the general hush as to Herc, probably.  He neither inspired nor demanded the same kind of rigid professionalism that had kept Stacker going through his last years, as long as everyone was exceptional at their job.  There were no strangers here. PPDC Security had everything locked up tight. The event had been set up well ahead of time, as soon as it was clear that the Shatterdome wasn’t going to be able to handle the delivery.  PPDC Medical could do anything up to and including neurosurgery, but they weren’t really set up for high risk births.  And surprise triplets were definitely considered high-risk, requiring the mother to be hospitalized weeks before the delivery date, to her infinite ire.

She’d gone into labor this morning around 3am, and Herc didn’t know if she was relieved or terrified.  Or both.  Probably both.  He was far more certain that both soon-to-be fathers were just terrified.

No one had been prepared when Jazmine Becket suddenly offered to act as a surrogate for Raleigh and Chuck.   If anybody should be a daddy, she’d said, enjoying their shock at the Christmas dinner table, it was Chuck Hansen, but only because Raleigh would be there to save the day.  Chuck had flushed bright red, Raleigh had nearly smothered his sister, and Yancy had mercifully asked for Herc’s help getting something out of the oven, giving him a chance to wipe his eyes in private.

If he was honest, he’d never given grandchildren a thought before that moment.  It had nothing to do with Chuck’s preferences, but the fact that he’d stopped believing in a life after the kaiju so long ago that he’d forgotten things could be different.  These babies were a bridge to a future beyond the next problem that needed to be solved, the next jaeger on the drawing board, the next stack of paperwork, the next work cycle.  It had been surprisingly hard for him to get his head around that.  He’d smiled and nodded his way through a hundred conversations with Chuck and Raleigh about their kids-to-be, helped Raleigh plan, and helped soothe Chuck’s panic attacks, but he’d rarely seen Jazmine at the beginning, and all of it had somehow seemed theoretical to him.  He was going to be a grandfather.  Right, then.  He’d had work to do.

It’d been three years since the Breach was closed, and Herc still didn’t see a future for himself.  Everyone else had seemed to have no problem moving on.  He’d seen them do it.

Raleigh and Chuck, confined to Medical with each other, had fought and bitched their way into the first real romance of their lives, shocking no one when they’d announced they were getting married last year.  They still snarled at each other, but their small, intimate wedding had been full of genuine emotion, and they’d been a rock-solid couple since then, devoted to each other.

Yancy had finally gotten the prosthetics he’d deserved; Stacker had been holding the prototypes in reserve in case an active duty Ranger could use them, and Herc had signed them over to Yancy within a couple of weeks of Pitfall.  Herc could barely tell his legs were gone, one above and one below the knee, and most people didn’t have a clue.

Then Scott had come back, reconnected with him and made amends, and the idea of family had gotten a little more solid.  Herc hadn’t even realized how much he’d missed his brother until he had him again.  His brother had gone into rehab once he was out of the PPDC and then gotten his shit together, and Herc had reinstated him as a retired Ranger because his brother had come around, and what was the point of being the Marshal if he couldn’t abuse his power once in a while.  He’d held out for almost a week before grabbing Scott around the neck and ruffling his hair, and the last awkwardness between them had been over right there and then. Scott had done them both proud since, teaching at the Academy. They even had something of their ghost drift back now, and if it was faint and a little frail, it was still most welcome to them both.  Herc wouldn’t have believed anyone who’d told him that his brother would be a comfort to him someday, and he would’ve been wrong.  Scott was racked out on a row of chairs nearby; he’d never really lost his knack for sleeping anywhere at any time, even here, with his uniform jacket crumpled into a makeshift pillow.

He was surrounded by family, all of whom were moving on with their lives, finding new purposes, and he… he wasn’t quite sure he’d got it yet. It was hard to conceptualize a world that wasn’t defined by jaegers and his duty to bring them to the battlefield.  He’d never thought he’d be a lifer, but… what else was there?

He should’ve got it by now, to be honest.  There’d been a threat against Raleigh that had meant Jazmine needed to be moved to Hong Kong for her own safety, and then there’d been complications, and they’d needed a hospital that could handle this, and he’d been here, working out of a makeshift office the whole time.  They were all here, his whole family, in this strangely quiet place, and now, finally, it was happening.  The theoretical grandchildren were going to be real things soon.

Herc sighed and turned his back to the window.  He hated waiting, fucking loathed it, and been condemned to a life just full of it.  He’d never really learned to be a patient man.

Yancy had been out here earlier, tossed out of Jazmine’s room for an hour or so before she’d sent Raleigh to get her big brother back.  Yancy had looked a little shell-shocked, but he hadn’t had much to say that Herc hadn’t already known.  Aside from their ghost-drift, which had been thrumming with the same mix of excitement and raw fear for the last few days, Chuck had been really good about keeping his dad in the loop, sending messages because he wouldn’t leave Jazmine now.  Whether that was out of concern for her or fear for his life was unclear.

He was so proud of Chuck now he could hardly put it into words.  He tried harder at that, saying things, these days.  They both did.  His son had always tried harder and gone farther than most, and he was doing the same in peacetime, falling helplessly in love and building a new family for himself. 

He caught a wave of exhilaration from Chuck through the drift and knew what was happening.  Right here and right now.  He tried to tell himself to calm down, that he’d been through this before, but he wasn’t in the mood for good advice, even from himself.

“Oi!”  He shook Scott and his brother woke up the same creepy way he always did, going from a dead sleep to full consciousness in a second flat.

“Is it time?” Scott blinked at him and scowled, awake but not really enjoying it.

“I think so, from what Chuck’s feeling.”

Scott sat up and grinned at him.  “Took her bloody time, didn’t she?”

Herc grinned back, starting to feel a little giddy.  He didn’t know if that was Chuck’s emotions bleeding through or his own, but he knew there was no point in even asking questions like that most of the time, and especially not today.

“You can be the one that tells her that.”  He sat down next to Scott and his brother put an arm around his shoulders.

“Breathe deep, old man,” Scott admonished him, and Herc cuffed him, growling with mock anger.  His brother had started calling him that after hearing Chuck do it, and between the two of them, it had grown into a teasing, affectionate nickname.  Which didn’t mean Herc had to take it gracefully from either of them.  

“Don’t call me that.”

“What?!” Scott complained, trying to look innocent and failing miserably.  “You’re about to be a grandfather!  That’s the definition of an old man, innit?”

“Don’t know about _that_ , but the wait’s over, guys,” Yancy interrupted them.  He looked both happy and desperately in need of coffee, which meant he looked pretty much like Herc felt.  

“Yeah?” Scott asked, practically jumping up. 

“Come see.”

Numbly, Herc followed Becket back past the nurse’s station.  Scott asked the questions for them both, pulling brief, comforting answers from Yancy.  Jazmine was fine.  The babies were healthy.  Yes, there were really three, all girls, but not identical.  No, Chuck hadn’t fainted, but Yancy thought it had probably been a near thing. 

Then they were there, and it was a big room, much bigger than Herc remembered Angela getting, and on the far side of it was a hospital bed with a tired and justifiably cranky woman in it, holding a baby.  On either side of the bed stood the new fathers, each cradling one of his daughters.  They were tiny things, each of them, and one already had a shock of red hair, he saw.

All Herc could feel was awe, and he told himself it was all Chuck, even though he knew better.

His son looked up at him, eyes as wide as they could be, and Herc couldn’t have stayed away.  He threw an arm around his boy’s shoulders and hugged him close, careful as could be of the sprog.   Chuck almost sagged into his dad’s side for a moment before recovering himself. 

“You’re gonna help us with them, right, Dad?” he asked quietly, another question that didn’t need to be asked.

“’Course,” Herc reassured him, as if he had ever been any example of a father.  He’d do his best, for Chuck and Raleigh and these little girls, though.  He knew that for sure.

He touched the baby’s head softly, stroking soft skin, and marveled at her.  So tiny and sweet.  Herc had been deployed when Chuck was born, but he remembered seeing his own baby like this, only a month older and with no hint of the firebrand he’d grow up to be.

“Hey, grandpa,” Jaz called him over.  “Hold this baby, will ya?”

There were shadows under her eyes, and he knew she was sounding coarser and more cavalier for the shock value, to pretend that this wasn’t affecting her as much as it was.  She’d been clear that she planned on being an amazing aunt to these babies, but she didn’t want to be their mother.  She wasn’t ready for her own, and these were Raleigh and Chuck’s children, even if she’d provided the eggs and the womb.  Jaz was more vulnerable now than she’d expected, though, and Herc could see it in her.  Gently, he took the baby from her, cradling the tiny girl against his chest.  He knew how to hold a baby.  It didn’t seem to be one of those things you could forget.

“Hello, baby girl,” he cooed.

“Lucky little sprog, doesn’t look a thing like you,” Scott commented, looking over his shoulder.

“I can still disown you, you know,” Herc said, not meaning a word of it.

“Nah.  We Hansens gotta stick together now.  Who else will put up with our shit?”

“At least one Becket,” Raleigh offered up.  “As long as my Hansen does his share of the midnight diaper changes.”

Raleigh crossed over to Chuck’s side of the bed, walking as if he was carrying high explosives, and leaned in to give his husband a kiss as loving as they could manage with the babies in their arms.  The girl in Herc’s arms made a tiny sound, and he brought her closer to her sisters.

Three girls.  Three more Hansens in the world, in spite of everything the kaiju had thrown at them. 

Or Becket-Hansens, actually.

That just made them twice as unstoppable.

Herc looked around at his family, old and new, hurt and healed, and just starting out in the world.  The war had nearly cost them everything, but they were here now, together, and that was enough.  This was all the future he needed. 

“Took you long enough, old man,” Scott told him quietly, picking up on Herc’s quiet revelation in the drift.  For once, it didn’t sting even the tiniest bit.  He could be the patriarch of this weird little family, looking after them and guiding them and somehow making up for all the things he hadn’t been able to do for Chuck back then.  He could.

Didn’t mean he had to put up with this bullshit, though. 

“Don’t call me that,” he growled, and the little girl in his arms blinked and opened her eyes.  Of course they were blue.

She also did something else, as babies will, and Herc turned around, advancing on his brother with an overly-friendly smile.

“You ever change a diaper?”

Scott had the good sense to look alarmed.  “No?”

“Well, it’s a brave new world,” Herc announced.  “Let’s get you trained up.”

Scott sighed, then caught sight of Yancy smirking.  “What’re you laughing about, Becket?  You think you’re never getting hit up for babysitting duty?”

With his own sigh, Yancy followed the brothers over to the changing table.   Smugly victorious, Herc showed them how it was done.

They were all doomed, and Herc wouldn’t have it any other way.


End file.
